Ipotane

A painting of a drunked Ipotane

In Greek mythology, Ipotanes were a race of half-horse, half-humans. The Ipotanes are considered the original version of the Centaur.

Description

The typical Ipotane looked overall human, but had the legs, hindquarters, tail, and ears of a horse. However, some had human-like rather than horse-like legs (compare with early Satyrs, whose front legs were often human-like). The Greek suggested by "ipotane" is ιππότης (hippotes). It means knight. It is also used as an adjective as in ιππότης λεώς (hippotes leos) — horse knights that rode people. The definition given above would fit ιππότης λεώς — "horse-people".

See also

• Faun - Italian
• Glaistig - Scottish
• Hippopodes - Greek myth
• Pan - early Greek myth
• Silenus - early Greek mythology

References

• Liddell & Scott, Greek-English Lexicon.